i have no clue. the boat has set weeks in the water and never had a issue. i dont know if it was a shaft seal, rudder seal or what. plug was still in nice and tight. took two of us with a pipe wrench to get it out once it was on the trailer. made for a pretty crappy sunday

Holly crap. Robby That sucks. Sorry I would hate to come home or to my dock and find your boat destroyed or broken into that sucks big time. Please tell us more about what happend. Looks like you amp shorted out but it dosn't look like the fire (in the picture) was large enough to sink your boat. It looks like the Amp shorting out was contained to the small area in your photo. Did the fire start after you started to get the boat floating. give us some more details

Man, that's just terrible. I really hope everything works out for you. I keep my boat in the water about 7 months a year, and sinking at the dock is my worst fear. When you think about all the ways water can get in a boat - driveshaft, rudder, raw water intake, ballast, etc., it's really kinda surprising that this type of thing doesn't happen more often. Good luck man!

wow - That is horrible. Looking at the batteries - I see the valet breaker is open on one of the devices... but not all. Did the fusing not engage? I'd be curious to see if the fire point was the amplifier or did it burn all the way back on the power cable....

Just horrible man. super sorry to see this one.

A lesson for all - FUSE YOUR STEREO so if an amplifier blows up it cant grab current from the battery.

If I were you I'd be talking with my insurance company and hand over all my receipts for this install, I'm sure their lawyer will want to see them.

Definitely an uninformed comment. The boat was sunk first and the amplifier caught fire second upon exposure. Everything was protected by breakers. But fuses and breakers can't fully protect against a boat and electronics that are fully submerged. Submerged in water can nullify much of your protection.
A shorted capacitor in an amplifier can easily blow with far less amperage than the 75 amps it would take to blow the fuse or trip the breaker. Keep in mind that every amplifier was totally filled with water.
The ideal thing to do would have been to remove every terminal off every battery in the boat as soon as the water level dropped below all battery terminals. I'm not sure if everyone would be prepared for a sunken boat with rubber boots and gloves. I know I would be a little apprehensive about standing in water doing this.

No need for anyone to get defensive unless they have reason to be. Simply stated boats don't typically catch fire after they sink, its the other way around. It's in Robby's best interest to be as forthcoming with his insurance company as possible if he wants a new boat anytime in the next decade, this is a pretty mysterious set of circumstances I don't think anyone can argue that. I'd think they'd want to know any wiring/fusing done around a big dollar giant stereo system was done by professionals, that's all.

yes the amps caught fire after bringing the boat back to the surface. def. not a problem with the install or wiring. actually its the 1st time in 4 years that the stereo has worked flawless for a complete summer.

the reason for another x80, once you have one its hard to go back to anything else. they throw a decent wake to wakeboard and they throw a decent wake to surf. its not pro level wakes, but me and my friends are fare from pro level riders. what the boat lacks in perfect wakes it makes up for in room and comfort 10x over, the boat is a good foot wider than most wake boats and they sit out of the water. so if me and the family or friends go to a big lake for a holiday weekend. i dont think twice about blasting off through the center of the lake running 40. in my 247 or x star i always stayed a little closer to the bank or watched out for some big swells. the best part is they will house a monster stereo! the only down fall to a x80 that i absolutely hate is towing it. they are just big and heavy.

what you guys dont relise my stereo is a stand alone system. everything including head unit, 420. amps everything are on there on battery system, and that battery system only gets charged my 2 on board 80amp smart chargers. nothing is tied into the boats charging system or electrical system. so killing the perkos doest do anything with my stereo. the perkos where off when the boat went under and stayed off when we brought it up. my guess is the head unit shorted out and activated the remote wire to the amps which turned them on. i dont think anyone could predict what a head unit or amp is going to do after being under water for 10 hours

what you guys dont relise my stereo is a stand alone system. everything including head unit, 420. amps everything are on there on battery system, and that battery system only gets charged my 2 on board 80amp smart chargers. nothing is tied into the boats charging system or electrical system. so killing the perkos doest do anything with my stereo. the perkos where off when the boat went under and stayed off when we brought it up. my guess is the head unit shorted out and activated the remote wire to the amps which turned them on. i dont think anyone could predict what a head unit or amp is going to do after being under water for 10 hours

Just found the reason your boat sunk! I'm very sorry for your loss, but if you continue to keep your boat in the water unattended there has to be power to the bilge pumps! There is a very good possibility if they had been powered the boat would not have sunk... Depending on what made it sink. Not trying to be a dick, but seems like negligence on your part if the bilge pumps weren't powered.

Just found the reason your boat sunk! I'm very sorry for your loss, but if you continue to keep your boat in the water unattended there has to be power to the bilge pumps! There is a very good possibility if they had been powered the boat would not have sunk... Depending on what made it sink. Not trying to be a dick, but seems like negligence on your part if the bilge pumps weren't powered.

Perko switches turned off doesn't always mean no power to the bilge pumps. So no... your ignorant assumption could be far from the reason it sunk.

Hope you come up with a new boat soon. Thats tough to even look at the pictures.. ugh..

Jason, the bilge switch on the dash would not normally work with the master switch off. However, the auto circuit for the bilge pump should not be tied into the master power switch. You should be able to power all systems off, except for the auto bilge pump switch. If you want to kill the auto bilge pump switch, you have to pull the fuse for it. This is to prevent boats from sinking due to minor water intrusion or perhaps a bad storm, until the batteries run down. A battery with a good charge can pump a few thousands of gallons before it would fail.

Something else happened here. Missing plug unnoticed, plug not installed correctly and finally came out unnoticed, through hull pump or hose separating, etc. It can happen, I had a Tsunami pump pop out of the housing one day and I can tell you the water came in very fast. I noticed the bilge working, mine seldom comes on. I opened up the engine compartment to find water and a pump laying by the rudder. I still don't know why it came out that day, since I had used the boat a number of days previously. I am guessing it only clicked on one side on initial installation. Maybe his neighbour down the lake doesn't like wake boats!

what you guys dont relise my stereo is a stand alone system. everything including head unit, 420. amps everything are on there on battery system, and that battery system only gets charged my 2 on board 80amp smart chargers. nothing is tied into the boats charging system or electrical system. so killing the perkos doest do anything with my stereo. the perkos where off when the boat went under and stayed off when we brought it up. my guess is the head unit shorted out and activated the remote wire to the amps which turned them on. i dont think anyone could predict what a head unit or amp is going to do after being under water for 10 hours

So there is no way for you to kill power to your stereo system? Surely your stereo wasn't wired that way. With the perko's off your stereo should not be able to get any power, something isn't right here.

i had the stereo wired that way. why would i want my stereo run through my perkos. or even tied into my starting batteries when i have a huge battery bank for my stereo. pressing power on the head unit has always worked just fine. plus if i forget to turn the stereo off when i leave the lake. worst thing that happens is the next day i dont have a radio but the boat will always fire right up. next time i do a stereo i will probably put some kind of perko swith on my amps power cord. just incase by boat sinks again. when building this stereo the last thing that went through my head was my boat sinking and the head unit shorting out and turning on wet amps causing them to catch fire.

Wow lots of people are out to try to send blame without knowing the circumstances.
I've seen you out a few times this summer and the stereo was rocking.
At least you know exactly what to put into the next x80.
If ya need a hand looking at possible replacements let me know.

It's just this simple. To kill all stereo supply power in an emergency, all you have to do is push the button on the breaker. That's why they are left accessable. But you need to have the presence of mind to do this just like if there was a redundant switch in the same location. I can understand overlooking this when you are busy pumping out the water trying to save the boat. The risk of a short in a water-logged amplifier became a hot issue once the water level was reduced below the battery terminals.

Perko switches turned off doesn't always mean no power to the bilge pumps. So no... your ignorant assumption could be far from the reason it sunk.

My assumption wasn't ignorant... Harsh yes, but not ignorant. However, I'm not privey to the wiring system of the X-80 and understand that some boats have dedicated power wiring to the bilge system while others do not. As Elliot has explained his boat does which does negate my earlier assumption. Fact is water entered the boat quicker than it could be pumped out, which made it sink. How that water entered we don't know yet and there are 100 different ways it could have.

Elliot, and everyone for that matter, in the future I would suggest some means of quick disconnect be installed in the electrical system. When I installed my stereo 2 years ago I only had a 250 amp fuse between the battery bank and separate amp fusing. I saw the need for a quick, easy means for disconnecting power in the event of emergency and installed a manual disconnect switch between the battery bank and main fusing. This may not keep a fire from starting, but can take the potential energy away quickly in the event one does start.

Again Elliot I'm sorry for your loss and hope you get this all figured out and back on the water quickly. This all hits very close to home as my brother's 370 Sea Ray sank 2 weeks ago. Not to the extent your boat sank, but enough to fill both engines with water, knee deep in the cabin, and short out the entire electrical system. All of it was cause by one small hose coming off a thru-hull that pumps water to the A/C unit.

I wouldn't call fumbling through mulitple unmarked breakers in an effort to decipher which one to trip easy, if hitting the trip button on all the breakers is the answer I still don't think that gets it. Easy is turning a switch to off eliminating power to everything. Different definitions I guess.

I'm pretty sure Nautiques of my era have a 3 way switch where there are two OFF options, all off or auto bilge only.

Doesn't matter. Bilge should win against normal weep around shaft or rudder, but lose against about everything else, especially a plumbing disconnection above a through hull fitting. I launched once without the drain plug in. The hull was flooding fast. The bilge seemed to be little help in slowing the flood. Indeed, as soon I got the plug back in, it took the bilge many times longer to get the water out than the amount of time it took to flood in.

I feel for you Robby. There are so many ways things can go wrong, and fast, that it is hard to be 100% ahead 100% of the time.

Ratchet straps anchored to c clamps on the boat slip trusses with the other end tied to the rear cleets. Took about 3 hours to get it up...

I actually found the reason the boat sunk this evening. We had a light storm blow through on sat. Mouning/afternoon maybe 1.5 inches of rain. Even though my boat doesn't completely fit under my covered slip, probably about 6 ft hangs out. I knew that was no where near enough water to sink my boat. It was enough water to drop the back of the boat a little to much. Tonight we backed the boat in the water but kept it on the trailer to find the leak. We looked forever and was about to give up when a couple of my buddies had moved to the platform to wash the oily water off there hands, I happen to look down and saw water pouring in on the port side rear of the motor. Closer look and found that the port side muffler had cracked and 300lbs on the platform was enough weight to cause it to be under the water line and start leaking! ( BAD ) the boat has 3 bilges, aft, center, forward. Center and forward are mounted in the middle of the boat. Aft is on the starboard side. My leak was on the port side and the stringers of the boat kept the majority of the water on the port side. Not to mention my boat has a major port lean when just chilling, 6 golf cart batteries, amps, massive sub box at least a xtra 1000lbs on the port side. So anyways as we are all watching the water poor out of the port muffler it didn't take long maybe 20 min and there was now enough weight to cause water to come pooring in the bottom of the rear hatch. That was our Q to abandon ship and get it out of the water, In the mean time every bilge in the boat wasn't seeing any water. I'm guessing thats why the boat swisted to the port side in the slip